


thick as thieves

by valiidpunkman



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Angst, Coming of Age, Douchebag Billy, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Heartbreak, High School, Middle School, teenage angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:35:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21640297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valiidpunkman/pseuds/valiidpunkman
Summary: Childhood best friends that naturally grow apart as they age, set in California.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Other(s), Billy Hargrove/Reader, Billy Hargrove/You
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	thick as thieves

“Jesus, what’s it gonna take to get you to stop squirming?”

“You are about to stick a _needle_ in my ear, I think I’m allowed to be a little nervous. Won’tchu just cut me some slack, alright?” Billy snaps back at you, no doubt getting wound up because of the risk he’s taking doing this.

Billy has his arms tightly grasped around a throw pillow he stole from the couch, bracing himself for the upcoming pain of doom. His eyes have been squeezed shut as you take the melting ice cube between your fingers and delicately hold it up behind his earlobe. You’ve yet to even puncture him with the needle and he’s already sweating buckets. The teenage boy had asked you to hurry up and get it over with three times already, not even helping you out the slightest bit by staying still while bossing you around either. Typically, your role being the ‘smart one’ in your long lasting friendship would assign you the task of talking him out of wanting to do a foolish thing like this. On one hand, he had plenty of safer alternatives as opposed to going to you, an amateur, for getting the accessory punched in to his ear.

This ever changing dynamic of your platonic relationship had been set aside by the boy since you two started high school this year. He stopped taking the bus with you to and from school since his temperamental father started giving him lessons on how to drive. Another petty example of pretending he didn’t even know you was saying nothing when he passed by you in the halls, or stopped ringing you late at night when he needed help studying or just to talk. Other small things had added up to you barely hearing from him unless he wanted something from you; in this case, a free piercing job. It was hard to deny, but you’d refused to confess how your heart jumped at the opportunity of spending an evening with him again just like old times.

Unsurprisingly, the teenage boy didn’t bother making small talk about his day or giving you virtually any clue about the trouble he had been up to during these recent weeks ghosting you. Of course Billy didn’t care much for what you had to say either, he only wanted one thing and one thing only.

“Stop being a brat for five seconds, then I’ll cut you some slack,” you bite back. He’d rolled his eyes then gasped harshly at the sight of you picking up the freshly cleaned and heated needle from the coffee table. “Want me to count to three or surprise you?”

“Uh, surprise me.”

“Kay. What is this even for, anyway? Last I checked this one’s the gay ear,” you snort, watching him freeze up and widen his anxious blue eyes.

“Wait, _WHAT!_ ” he howled in a panic, giving you the perfect opportunity to stick the sharp end right through the lobe, watching him cringe and practically catch flies with his wide open mouth. “Ow, fuck!”

“You told me you wanted it to be a surprise,” you smugly point out, wiping your hands on a napkin after finishing the favor. He sends you a glare at your trickery before getting up and going to the mirror that hangs in your living room.

“Hell yeah. Not too shabby, Y/N. Thanks,” he smirks at his reflection, scoping out the brand new element to his ‘cool guy’ image. Not taking his eyes off his appearance, the boy continues fiddling with his hair and turning his head at different angles to inspect the fresh hole in his lobe. You’ve sat back and crossed your arms, rolling your eyes so far back at his disgusting vanity. He might as well be humping and kissing the mirror right in your own damn house. After getting noticed by all of the popular pretty girls and patted on the back by all the designated cool guys, he thinks his dick grew over ten feet in size or something, and you’ve been downgraded on his list of priorities.

Being the best of buds since elementary school, Billy’s had your back along every step of the way growing up. You’d write all the answers to tests on his forearm for him, he’d keep all the bullies away from you. Each of you would take turns sharing lunch every week. His favorite thing to gobble up at any given chance was your squeezable applesauce, and your favorite snack coming from his lunchbox was always string cheese. There was barely ever a moment you’d be seen without each other.

Middle school went by in a flash of painful and awkward moments, but despite all the friends he made in Little League Baseball, he for some reason still stuck around with you. Maybe you couldn’t do the same sleepovers like you used to as pre-pubescent children, but he’d still give you your favorite string cheese and hugged you tight whenever you wore a frown.

Now, both in your freshman year of high school, things weren’t as easily labeled as black or white. There were cliques and expectations that Billy abided by, and you just didn’t fit in with any of that. Instead of letting you down easy, it was more of a hurtful shock the day he decided to ditch you at lunch for the girls that had been eyeballing him during gym class. Now, not only did he try his best to bury your friendship somewhere deep and never touch it again, you’d went great lengths to avoid any confrontation with him or his posse.  
That all just went to shit for the first time today, when he approached you about said earring. You didn’t know how to say no, and you weren’t sure you could if you tried.

“Okay, Kiefer Sutherland, you got what you asked. Why the hell would you want some douchey hanging earring anyway? That a new trend or somethin’ I don’t know about?” you ask, not hiding your judgement the slightest bit. He throws his denim jacket over his bare shoulder exposed from the muscle tee he’d been wearing, then gives you a cheeky grin before answering.

“Sammy Anderson from bio said it’d look good on me. You know her, brunette with the legs. She thinks it’s pretty gnarly,” he nods his head back and forth, sucking his bottom lip with his teeth before not long after snapping out of whatever daze he had been in.

“Since when did you even give a shit what people thought _looked good_ on you?”

“Since they started actually telling me,” he shrugs, not caring how pathetic it may be that he went through all this trouble just for one off-hand comment some girl from class made. You hide your scoff with a forced laugh, walking passed him and bumping shoulders on your way to the kitchen. Billy furrows his brows at your attitude and the diss, following you to where you’ve been preparing a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios for yourself.  
“‘S the matter with you, huh? I thought you wanted to hang out again,” he asks, confused by the conflicting mixed signals you’d been sending. You chomp on your Cheerios and take your time swallowing the satisfying bite before looking up at him.

“I never said that.”

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but who called whose house every night then turned into a jealous bummer as soon as one of them started making better friends?” he asks rhetorically, petting his chin and pretending like it’s some thought provoking question. You can’t believe the audacity he had calling you a jealous bummer when he left you for good without batting an eye at the loss of friendship. Your chair screeched as it dragged on the floor when you stood up out of it, keeping your bowl in your arms before showing him the door. You nod your head towards the exit wordlessly as Billy stubbornly stays put, not through with his point yet.

“Well, Kiefer, this _bummer_ is asking you to leave. I got you your stupid fucking earring like I promised, and let’s hope you know how to keep it from getting infected, otherwise I’m done listening to you and your new inflated ego.” you finished, ending your speech with a slurp of the milk from your cereal bowl, waiting for him to take himself out. Billy calls it a day, shaking his head and saying more pussy accusations under his breath before making it to the door, stopping to invade your space.

“This better not be in the fuckin’ gay ear, or you’ll be hearing from me again, just so you know—“  
And with that, you slammed the door in his face and locked it before sauntering back to the kitchen, carefree as you pour yourself another bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

—

Your freshman year went by without anything to really mark it as a special year. Maybe you met a few new faces, people a year above your grade that were kind enough to show you around and give you a better outlook on what high school could be. Billy only gained more and more followers, becoming the alpha dog at only fifteen years old with eighteen-year-old’s wanting to have him or be him.

With the new earring you’d pierced for him, Sammy Anderson was always seen pawing at him like an annoying house cat, and he’d put on a show most likely just for your eyes in particular. To make you envy the brunette, Billy would strut around the halls he knew you walked through like a catwalk, hoping you’d see and think he was all that. Sammy, for some reason, couldn’t pass any ninth grade classes although she was a junior, she still shared a few periods with a freshman Billy. She was shameless about riding the fifteen-year-old’s dick, and had been made aware of you being the prime target for where and when they show their public displays of affection.

You really could give a shit about the drama he put you through anymore. Yeah, it really hurt having someone you stood by a good chunk of your life leave, but there was nothing you could do about it. Other than just find your place and where you belong on the food chain of high school, which wasn’t much to brag about. You had your humble few friends that were loyal and been told about your past with Billy Hargrove. They couldn’t believe with your personality and his transformation that you’d ever been affiliated with him in the first place, and honestly you couldn’t believe it either.  
Sophomore year was starting now, and it was getting to be the season for those annoying high school dances that every movie or book goes on and on about. Less than thrilled but obligated to attend, the dance was in full swing when you’d arrived in your outfit of choice. Dressing up wasn’t ideal, but you’d made somewhat of an effort trying to be presentable for the expectations that these gatherings hold. After finding your group and huddling close together, you’d excused yourself for a bathroom break and walked down the empty and eerily quiet hall to the restrooms. You had no idea what you were in for when you stepped on someone’s foot that was completely covered by the dark.

“Christ! The fuck is your problem, huh?” the all too familiar voice had shouted in anger before the sound of runny sniffling followed. He pulled the foot you had stepped on further away so that you couldn’t do it again and cursed again under his breath. Of course, it was none other than your long lost bestest friend Billy.

“Jeez, sorry. Not my fault you’re sitting in the fuckin’ darkness,” you defend yourself, still terrified by the disadvantage you have being unable to see a goddamn thing. As if God himself had been listening to your thoughts, a dim light turned on and illuminated parts of the hallway, as well as a disheveled and evidently heartbroken Billy curled up on the floor, holding onto his knees. The tux he wore had been loosened, and his hair looked like he’d ran his fingers through it one too many times out of stress. He looked like a fucked up mess.  
Just as you were staring him up and down, a stuttered exhale had fallen from the boy’s lungs as his hands desperately scrubbed at his watery eyes. It didn’t take a degree in psychology or whatever the fuck else to gather what’s going on here.

You approached him cautiously, as gentle as approaching a frightened deer, knowing how deeply sensitive and guarded Billy is at all times. The walls he’d built while playing the role of California’s resident fuckboy. You’d seen him cry only a handful of times, and that was mostly when you were kids and had excuses to cry about everything. Kid cut him in line, or made fun of the design on his lunchbox. Basic things that children often cry at, but you’d remembered the one night you saw him fall apart right in front of you the night his mom had fled without a trace. All the questions Billy and even you had about her whereabouts were still unanswered, but that never got brought up again after the breakdown he’d suffered through while huddled up in your arms. The poor thing was was so confused, not even knowing if his mom had kicked the bucket or just wanted the fuck away from her husband, even if that meant leaving her son.

Point is, it was always a rollercoaster when Billy got emotional, and you just so happened to walk right into him while he was in the middle of one of his fits.

“Oh. It’s you,” the teen grumbled, obviously disappointed at you being the one to catch him having an episode in the dark hallway outside the school’s dance.

“Hey, uh… What’s going on here?”

“I’m a fucking idiot who should know better is what’s going on. That’s exactly what you wanna hear though, isn’t it?” he hisses, dark and twisted as he fails to hide the runny nose and tears spurting down his cheeks. Immedietely forgetting all the shit you both went through freshman year, you bowed down to his level and sat by where he layed dejected and despondent on the ground.

“Not exactly what I wanna hear,” you murmur, looking at him before touching his arm with apprehension. When he didn’t shoo away from your grasp, you thanked God that Billy didn’t snap at you and tell you to piss off. You’d been pleasantly surprised at that moment when instead he leaned further into your touch, covering his face with his palm as he sniffles in misery.

“I see you put a new earring in, pretty kickass. Bet the ladies love it,” you admire the cheesy new gothic pendant that dangles from his ears. Anything to get his mind off of what’s troubling him will count as a win in your book.

“What ladies, you mean Sammy Anderson? She just dumped my ass in there and started dancing with some other white trash asshole. Figures,” he takes a red and white box out of the pocket of his suit and you notice that it’s Marlboro Red cigarettes. You weren’t in the loop of what he’d been up to since starting high school, but smoking seemed to be new. He lights it up and puffs on it like a natural, like he’d been doing that his entire life, and it’s a sad picture for you to see. The snot bleeding from his nostrils hasn’t quit, and you snatch a back up tissue from your bag and hand it over without thinking twice. The broken boy looks from the tissue then back to you a couple times before taking it and blowing his nose. When he dunks it in the trash can and makes it in, you cheer him on and give a lighthearted high five. After the brief moment of silliness is over, Billy looks over to you with bewilderment in his eyes.

“Why are you helping me?”

“People grow apart all the time, Billy. It’s the most natural thing in the world. That doesn’t mean I can’t care for your well being,” you reason, biting your tongue to keep from saying anything more that you may regret in the long run.

“Uh, yeah. Guess you’re right. I care about your like… well being and stuff too,” he mumbles, taking another drag of nicotine before offering you a hit.  
You shake your head and hold up your hand.  
“No thanks. I came here to use the restroom is all,” you move to get up from the floor before Billy is quick to join you.

“Yeah, go ahead. Just one thing real quick, I wanted to say sorry. All the shit I pulled last year wasn’t cool at all. But I’m always here for you too, yeah?” he confirms, gazing into your eyes making you freeze on the spot.

“It’s alright. I’m about to piss myself right now though, so I’m gonna go,” you chuckle, pointing towards the ladies restroom. The boy is quick to laugh with you, urging you to do your business.  
“Wait, Y/N,” he calls out, standing at the end of the hall by the entrance to where the dance is still being held.

“Yeah?” you shout back, bladder close to giving out as you stand by to watch Billy fumble from the end of the hall before hushing:  
“You look really beautiful tonight. Whoever you’re with is lucky as hell.”

—

Junior year comes, and you and Billy haven’t properly spoken since the dance when you’d caught him crying in the dark and accidently stepped on his foot.

He hadn’t calmed down on his ruthless antics, but they’re not directed towards antagonizing you, so that’s a plus. You had accepted that he just wasn’t apart of the path you’d been on and you weren’t apart of his. How the circle of life goes, or whatever.

Billy had found himself yet another new beau, Ashley something, her last name had escaped your mind. He’d still been just as obnoxious with his frequent PDA tendencies at school and elsewhere. You had shared a class with her last year, so you know at least this time she’s his age, but you don’t know anything deeper than that. He wouldn’t ignore you when you passed by each other in the halls, giving you a pointed look and a little wave, which you returned every time. Unbeknownst to you, his group that ruled the whole school always wondered how the hell he even knew you and why he’d never forgot to acknowledge you if he saw you anywhere. The blonde would just tell them to keep their fucking noses from his business and never mess with you or any of your friends.

On this night, for the first time in three years, Billy had invited you to come over, insisting actually. Over the phone he made it clear he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He chewed on his fingernails while anxiously chainsmoking, his leg tapping up and down so fast it might as well fall off. He’d been waiting for your arrival the last fifteen minutes, counting the minutes and even the seconds until you finally show up. It was a hasty knock on his bedroom door that made the boy throw himself out of the chair he’d been seated in and take a deep breath. Temporarily setting his smoke down on the window sill, he raised his voice when telling you to come in.

You’d opened the door and walked in like you’d never been here before. It was difficult for Billy to see, remembering all the days you used to come in and make yourself at home in his room. All the toy cars and dinosaurs he’d collected had disappeared, now replaced with various colognes and mountains of hair gel, as well as more jewelry strung around every surface. You were astonished seeing a set up of heavy weights in the corner too, but you’d neglected to notice him grow bigger and bulkier as he matured.

“Close the door,” he whispers, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans as your eyes got bigger at the serious tone the boy had used. You softly shut it all the way, unsure about what it is Billy wanted from you this time.

“So uh, you want me to pierce anything else? A nipple maybe?” you joke, trying to ease the unbearable tension that’s making the bedroom seem claustrophobic and stuffy. Billy doesn’t laugh, feeding more into the uneasy feeling stirring in your gut and instead sits on the edge of his bed and pats right next to him, signaling for you to take a seat. You swallow audibly before doing as you were told, crossing your arms and legs on the firm mattress, thinking it’ll somehow soothe how frightened you are of whatever he’s about to tell you.

“You want one?” he offers you another one of his Marlboro’s, this time a blue pack as opposed to the red’s he smoked at the school dance.

“No. I told you I didn’t smoke,” you remind him, which he nods in understanding.

“You don’t mind if I smoke in here though, do you?“

“Fucking A, just tell me what this is all about, Billy! You invite me over for the first time in years and you’re acting real fucking weird, so if you would just… just _spit it out_ already—“

“I’m moving outta California.”

You pause, needing to get a better grip on your rapid beating heart that’s going as fast a drum solo from some rock band tune. Billy stares at you intently, waiting to see what your reaction will be like. When he receives nothing but a gawking expression still smothered on your face, he goes on to give you more details of his departure from California.

“I’m uh, I’m leaving. Overheard my old man talking on the phone, we’ll all be outta here by the end of the month. He wasn’t even planning on telling me until the day of,” Billy explains, his lip trembling up and down at the thought of leaving everything, his home, and especially you behind.

“W-Where?” you choke out, not knowing what the fuck to even say besides spouting the endless questions swarming your mind. Billy looks at you and copies what you did the night of the school dance when he was the one in pain, touching your arm and wrapping it with his palm. He rubs his thumb in circles there for a bit.

“Some shithole town in Indiana,” he answers before going on to the reason why he had invited you here other than just giving you the news. “I um, I wanna ask you to do something,” he stutters, one dramatic tear dropping down a cheek from his right eye as he holds your arm tight as if you’ll flee away if he ever let go.

“Sure, Bill. I’ll do anything,” your hand reaches to cup his cheek to comfort him, learning that touching him when he’s in distress always helps more than it hurts.

“Come with me, please,” he invokes, leaning further into your touch as the bridge he’s spent years building keeping everybody out shatters, leaving him wipe open and terrified of being left alone. Starting all over again his senior year in some dried up small town, without his childhood best friend roaming the same halls as he will. “I’m serious. You’ll… we can do it together. Just like old times, right?” he asks, pulling what looks to be your infamous favorite snack, a cheese stick from his back pocket and handing it over to you, hope in his eyes.

“Are you fucking insane?” you withdrawal from him, not taking the stick of cheese and waiting for the punchline of some sick joke he’s pulling. Billy cannot possibly be serious, his only bribe for you to come with him being some snack he used to give you as a kid. He had the balls to think he could perfectly replace your family and your friends just for his own selfish needs and a stick of cheese.

“No. Right now I’m sure as shit making way more sense that I ever have in the past three goddamn years, Y/N. I fucking love you, and the thought of being away from you is making me fucking sick,” the boy grimaces, wishing he could pull you close to him again but the chance of getting your permission isn’t likely.

“You…. what?”

“I know. But you love me too, I can see that you do.”

“Dude, your shroom dealer is amazing. Wanna hook me up sometime, or—“

“Stop fucking around and be straight with me, okay! There’s no way in hell any of this was friendly from the start, you don’t cheer up your cryin’ ex-best friend on the floor just because you’re some goddamn saint. You did it because that’s love, alright?” he stands up, pointing his finger at you as tears stream freely out of his broken blue eyes.

“This is a joke, right? I gotta be dreaming or something,” you squeeze your eyes shut and try pinching your arm in an attempt to wake up from alternate reality you’re helplessly trapped in. Billy gets down on his knees and grasps both your wrists in his heads, staring at you dead in the eye.

“Sammy Anderson didn’t mean fucking jack to me, okay. Same goes with Ashley, too. You’re it for me. Don’t you understand?”

“No, I don’t. You aren’t supposed to ditch who you love just to chase some tail! You left me, only coming to me if you needed something from me; now you want me to take some big leap of faith for you? After all you’ve done?”

Billy hangs his head in his hands in agony before pacing around the perimeter or his room back and forth. He doesn’t know what else to say, so logic has officially left the building. Now he’s receded to throwing up all his deep secrets hoping it’ll have some affect on you or make you do something, anything.

“Y’know, when I lost my virginity to Sammy in the chick’s bathroom at school… I thought of you the entire time. She didn’t even fuckin’ blink twice after I said your name instead a’ hers, she just kept going—“

You plug your ears, desperate to tune out the boy’s  
filthy story telling, throwing his own pillow at him to get him to knock it off. He catches it with a stealthy hand, keeping his grip on it as he listens to you whine and moan.

“Aw, c’mon man! We could’ve _easily_ kept discussing this without any of your dirty—“

“Stop it. Stop stalling and give me an answer right here, right now. Tell me if you love me too.”  
You scrape your scalp, dreading having this painful conversation, dreading giving him the ugly truth. Once upon a time if he would’ve done this sooner, your answer would’ve been different.

“I… I just can’t keep this up, Billy. I can’t do it anymore. I gave so many parts of myself up for you, but it’s too late now. I won’t throw everything I have here away just so you can use me when I’m convenient, alright? Fucking…” you look up, watching as your childhood best friend crumbles to the floor and hugs the pillow to his chest, eerily similar to the time you pierced his ear for him in the ninth grade. You swiftly sit up off of the bed, going down to his level again, just like the night of the school dance. Getting ready to give him more soothing, encouraging words, something like ‘it’ll be alright’ or a promise of visiting him in the near future, all of that gets ripped away from you when he makes his next move.

Without any warning whatsoever, Billy takes your jaw and smashes his lips to yours, forcefully pressing you further into him. The pillow he’d been clutching had fallen to the ground between the two of you.

This was the last fucking straw, and you’re exhausted to _shit_ now.

You shove him off of you with a hundred percent of your power, wiping his saliva from your mouth with disgust and backing up to the other end of the bedroom, as far away as possible from the weeping boy.

“Stay the fuck off me. And have fun in Indiana, I’m sure you’ll be missed by all your fans at school.”

—

Billy is equally as antsy as he is pissed off when the Hargrove family makes their way to the airport, the boy staring out the window with a permanent worried look in his eye at how he left things with Y/N.

As he boards the plane, giving his younger step sibling Maxine a death glare for the window seat, he holds his gaze out the little window at the clouds surrounding the wing of the plane. When they land in Hawkins, Indiana, he’s still filled to the brim with regret at everything he’d done. He thinks of all the what if’s, like what if he hadn’t cared so much about his reputation, what if he’d kissed you sooner, what if, what if, what fucking if. The list goes on.

_“People grow apart all the time, Billy. It’s the most natural thing in the world. That doesn’t mean I can’t care for your well being.”_

He’ll hate himself for along time after using you, ignoring you, and ultimately abandoning you at the beginning of the hell that is high school. But that’s just the way it goes for guys like Billy. It could’ve gone the other way, too, such as following him to Indiana and loving him back after all. But that version’s just a figment of his imagination.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: valiidpunkman. Feel free to request or message me on there.


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